


Drowning

by Indefensible2017



Category: Holby City
Genre: Angst, Beach Holidays, F/F, Surfer Bernie, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:16:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indefensible2017/pseuds/Indefensible2017
Summary: “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”Jason asks if he can learn to surf for his birthday and Bernie offers to teach him. With a weekend trip to the seaside organised, Serena struggles with her feelings for Bernie as she desperately tries not to ruin the friendship she cares so much for.





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> NEW FIC. This is really, really hard to write and physically hurts me inside, but I need to write something I miss it so much, and I hope there's still people reading.

“He wants to go surfing.” Serena collapsed into her office chair, breath leaving her lungs. “I thought he’d ask for a trip to a railway museum or a science park!”

“For his birthday?” Bernie asked, sipped the Pulses coffee on her desk that went cold hours ago, but caffeine is still caffeine.

Serena nodded, “He has so much _stuff_ already, you know? I thought an experience would be more valuable… but this? What am I going to do? If I get him lessons the instructor won’t understand his intricacies, it’ll be so hard for him, he won’t enjoy it.” She sighed, exasperated at the risk of letting Jason down.

“I can teach him, if you like?”

Serena looked up from her files on her desk, tried to make out if Bernie is joking. “Since when can you surf?” She asked, eyebrow raised, intrigued. Bernie Wolfe is a constant surprise.

“I learned a few years back, only the basics, but enough to teach someone else how to get up on some smaller waves.” Bernie smiled, warm and honest and eager to help if Serena needed her.

“It’s a very kind offer.” Serena bit her bottom lip, frowned slightly as she thought through the implications of what she was asking of Bernie. They would basically be going on holiday together, albeit along with Jason - this was far from her plan of creating some distance between them. For weeks she had been avoiding Bernie’s suggestions for drinks or dinner together after work. It was obvious Bernie knew something wasn’t right between them, Serena had seen it in her eyes, the wariness where there used to be unquestioning affection. Serena turned on her computer, tried to buy herself some time in giving Bernie a response. Of course she wanted to say yes, but she held back. How could she be sure she wouldn’t slip up? Her feelings for Bernie constantly simmered at the surface as it was. Where would a holiday together lead? She couldn’t risk destroying their entire friendship, again.

\------------------------

“I had a lovely evening.” Bernie’s face was lit by the light of Serena’s porch, the only light that surrounded them in the darkness of the evening. Bernie had insisted she walk Serena home from the restaurant they’d been to that night, a typically Bernie thing to do and Serena adored her all the more for it.

“Me too.” Serena replied, nerves bubbled in her chest at the realisation they were stood so close together on the porch step that she could feel the warmth of Bernie’s breath on her face. They’d both been drinking, probably much more than would be sensible on a Wednesday evening, they always did. A shared silent agreement that they would both help each other through whatever hangover might await them the next morning.

“We should do it more often, make it a weekly thing or something?” Bernie suggested, eyes full of uncertainty at the proposal that left her lips.

“I’d… I’d like that,” Serena nodded, seeing the uncertainty dissipate from Bernie’s eyes with her response. Her fingertips grazed against the keys inside her coat pocket but she didn’t want to bring them up to the front door, didn’t want the moment to end. “I’d imagine with your lack of cookery skills it’s the only time you get a decent meal inside you.” She added, teasingly, tried to find relief from the building intensity she could feel in her body. Bernie was so close. _So tantalisingly close._

Bernie blushed, glanced down at the ground before looking back up at Serena, and it was that look, that innocent, beautiful face with those deep, brown eyes, that drove Serena’s lips to Bernie’s cheek before she could even question her actions. Serena closed her eyes as her lips met with the warmth of Bernie’s skin, breathed in the faint smell of her coconut shampoo, savoured the sensation of their bodies just a little closer together, before what she’d done sunk in. Within milliseconds Serena was on the other side of her front door, pressed against it and immediately feeling the loss of Bernie next to her. Her heart hammered in her chest as though it were pumping regret rapidly through her body.

She’d promised herself she wouldn’t let this happen. She prayed Bernie would think nothing of it.

It wasn’t as though Serena was unsure of her feelings, she knew the symptoms of desire well, had many a time made her intentions known to men in her life, had taken them to her bed without hesitance.

It wasn’t the fact Bernie was a woman that concerned Serena. She had no qualms about the idea of being with a woman, despite admittedly having no previous experience. She had looked online, knew her body well enough to know what worked for her, felt confident in the idea of it all.

It also wasn’t though she felt Bernie were any better than her, or that she was somehow undeserving of Bernie, they had established long ago they were both equals, and Serena believed it without doubt and well beyond their professional unison.

No, it wasn’t any of those things at all. It was fear of destroying the one friend in her life that she unconditionally trusted, and everything they had worked together for, that stopped her. That stopped her from reaching out and holding Bernie’s hand across the table whenever they were at Albie’s. That stopped her tucking Bernie’s messy, flyaway hair behind her ear when she removed her scrub cap after their surgeries. That stopped her telling Bernie that she meant more to her than just a friend.

“I love you.” Serena whispered to an empty room, voice shaking and strained with the angst that threatened to consume her, her head against the wood of the door she rested against. “I love you, Bernie.”

\------------------------

It had been two weeks since that night and Bernie had never mentioned the kiss or Serena’s sudden retreat into her home. Serena’s avoidance tactics hadn’t given her much of a chance to bring it up either. She knew if Bernie were to question what had happened she wouldn’t be able to lie. So she remained silent, hoped that somehow her feelings would eventually disappear.

“If you don’t want me to, then that’s okay.” Bernie’s voice broke the silence in the room and Serena’s thoughts. She sounded a little defensive, hurt even.

“I want you to.” Serena replied, held Bernie’s gaze for a moment. “Jason would love that.” she added. It wasn’t an offer of time together - it was for Jason.

Bernie smiled. “Send me some dates? I could find a good beginner beach, and find somewhere nearby to stay for us?”

“I couldn’t ask that of you.” Serena shook her head.

“You’re so busy,” Bernie motioned to the ever-increasing stack of paperwork on Serena’s desk. “Please, let me take care of this for you?”

Serena sighed, frowned a little. She knew it wasn’t like Bernie didn’t have any work to do, she’d only yesterday agreed to take the majority of Serena’s surgeries until the CQC had made their annual visit, but Serena realised, as she thought it through, that she wouldn’t even have the foggiest where to start when it came to booking a surfing holiday. Perhaps Bernie arranging it did make sense. “Okay,” she nodded, “but you use my credit card for _everything_. It’s not up for debate. You’re not paying for a penny of it.”

Bernie rolled her eyes, amused at Serena’s strictness, “Okay, okay.”

Serena smiled, feeling excitement bubble in her chest in spite of the part of her that knew their friendship was now hurtling 100 miles per hour toward catastrophe. She’d never be able to spend an entire weekend on holiday with Bernie and keep her feelings contained…could she?


End file.
